Black History

 by Charlotte Hinger

Wall Hanging by Kyle Odum

I'm on the board of directors for the Nicodemus Historical Society. I know a lot about Nicodemus, Kansas. Oklahoma University Press published my academic book about the town, and Five Star published a novel centered on this historic settlement. Last summer I attended the annual Homecoming Event and purchased this wall hanging made one of the descendants, Kyle Odum.

Nicodemus was the first black town on the High Plains after the Civil War. I maintain that it was the first time in American history that African American dictated political decisions to the surrounding white community. 

BlackPast is the finest resource I know for learning about black history. So what does it take to create such a wonderful site? A really big need. Dr. Quintard Taylor at the University of Washington saw a need and devised a plan to fill the hole. Before BlackPast there was no single central location on the internet that collected comprehensive accurate material about African Americans and people of African ancestry.

I refer to Dr. Taylor as the "major god of blacks in the West." In every field there is always someone regarded as the ultimate authority. Taylor is tops when it comes to African history. BlackPast received immediate support.

The site began in 2004. In the summer of 2005 Dr. Taylor received a U.S. State Department-sponsored invitation to visit the Russian cities of Yekaterinburg, Omsk, Tyumen, Ishim, and Surgut to give lectures at various universities and institutes. That 14 day tour was initiated by the discovery of the faculty website by students at Urals State University in Yekaterinburg, Siberia.

This online reference center includes an online encyclopedia of nearly 3,000 entries, the complete transcript of nearly 300 speeches by African Americans, other people of African ancestry, and those concerned about race, given between 1789 and 2014, over 140 full text primary documents, bibliographies, timelines and six gateway pages with links to digital archive collections, African and African American museums and research centers, genealogical research websites, and more than 200 other website resources on African American and global African history.

I've done a number of entries for BlackPast. I feel honored anytime I'm asked to contribute.

I don't know any meta site in the mystery field. Sometimes I feel as those of us in the mystery field could use a place that is sort of a mystery central where ideas are gathered in one place.

 

Sharing Research

 by Charlotte Hinger

In addition to my mystery series, I have published historical novels, an academic book, short stories, and a number of articles. Recently, I have received requests for copies of my primary research. Some of this has been hard to come by. No one would even know it existed if I hadn't cited it in books and articles. 

Does that sound like an exaggeration? It's not! For instance, in describing the brilliant African American con man, John W. Niles, in my academic book published by Oklahoma University Press, I relied on a pamphlet published by the Vo-Tech boys in a high school class in 1923. It was housed in the historical society of Graham County, Kansas. A volunteer managed to locate it and copied it for me. 

I've wrestled with my reluctance to copy these documents and send them off to whoever. I've literally crawled up into dust-laden shelves for some of them. And persuaded county clerks to go fetch old records when they barely have time to keep up with current customers.

A very wise editor supports generosity. He pointed out that each historian puts material to a different use. I've come around to his way of thinking. But my willingness to "share" depends on the willingness of other writers to demonstrate basic courtesy. Nothing takes the place of "please" and "thank you." 

The first step in acquiring this kind of material always begins with the question "Does this exist?" If so, where would it most likely be located? This process is similar to plotting in mysteries. It's very satisfying to work out a plot in a mystery novel. I love the aha moments. 

Identifying and locating primary source material gives me the same triumphant feeling. I was positively giddy when I figured out that John Niles was the first person to get to United States senate to introduce a petition for slave reparations. I had the Senate Journal entry to back up that audacious assertion. 

I was equally elated over the miraculous moment during the writing of Lethal Lineage, my second book in the Lottie Albright series, when everything clicked. All at once. The book had literally been driving me crazy. More than a light bulb going off, it was like a meteor shower. 

Lethal Lineage is a locked room mystery. My first and probably my only one because I'll never have an idea that good again. It's still my favorite mystery in the series. 

Both my agent and my editor told me they didn't see the ending coming, but it made perfect sense. I was thrilled!

There's one historical document that I probably will never find. In 1879, the county commissioners of the County of Rook in Kansas were presented with a petition to organize the first township in the County of Graham. The petition originated in Nicodemus, so all the signatures were African American. I've searched for this petition at the Kansas State Historical Society and all the county offices. 

I would love to have it. Does the original exist? Probably not. But who knows? Sadly, families often horde old documents and photos thinking they will write a book someday. Then they die and the kids don't recognize the value of the pictures and papers and they are tossed. 

Nicodemus

 by Charlotte Hinger

Last weekend I went back to Kansas for the annual Emancipation Celebration held in Nicodemus, Kansas. I'm on the board of directors and wanted to make the trip while I could. Covid taught me that chances are fleeting. 

Nicodemus was the first all-black pioneer community started on the high plans. This was the 144th anniversary of this event! Yes, it began in 1878. The town exists today and is part of the National Park Service. The day commemorates the time when slaves were freed in the West Indies. 

Descendants from the original settlers come from all over the United States to meet up with family and renew friendships. I have written a lot about this remarkable community and am on the board of directors. 

This group of men played dominos and cards while they caught up with family news.

Kyle Odum's quilts are wonderful. This one is made of blocks representing stations on the Underground Railroad. I bought a gorgeous wall hanging. Kyle came all the way from Michigan for this reunion. 

The kids had a blast. One enterprising youngster built this house out of oversized Legos and his friends all wanted to step inside. There were plenty of toys and activities for children.

This young artist wasn't shy about using color.

The parade is the highlight of the Saturday activities. Nicodemus had a number of "Buffalo Soldiers." This name was given to them by American Indians because their curly hair looked like the hair on buffalo hides. 

When so many traditions are being abandoned, it's wonderful to see a celebration that is holding its own. 

A Joyful Surprise

 My first live event since the Covid shutdown was at Fort Morgan, Colorado, a town with a population of about 1l,500. There were over 130 persons there at a beautifully organized luncheon. Tables of eight were laid with exquisite china and hand-lettered name plates. 

The organization hosting this was the Philanthropic Educational Organization (PEO) I couldn't have been more surprised by the attendance. I sold every book I brought, including the four copies of my academic book. I always overpack, so I this outing was easily my biggest money-making talk.

I'm not only a weird combination of pantser/plotter in my writing methods, that's my approach to talks also. All of my books, whether mysteries or historical novels, have a non-fiction element that serve as the foundation of my presentation. My knowledge of African American history is embarrassingly narrow. Believe me, in a general sense, I don't know anything. 

I focus on the experiences of Blacks in Kansas--and the Great Plains and Nicodemus, Kansas in particular. However, I know a lot about that particular subject. 

Sandra Dallas, a great and prolific Colorado writer, once said she didn't understand the writing process. I loved that comment. I don't understand it either. Since I slither back and forth between genres and fiction and non-fiction, it's easier to explain the non-fiction process. Academic non-fiction is analytical and miserably tedious. Fiction is a magical process, and I don't know what I mean by that.

I can't explain how I intuit the approach to take in talks. My content to this lovely group of women was focused on history. There was a spark of attentiveness from the very beginning. Another time I might switch immediately to crafting mysteries and some publishing experiences. 

I speak for about thirty minutes and then call for questions. When the talk has been focused on history, I have to keep myself severely reined in or I will talk for another thirty minutes on a subject raised in a question.

Before a meeting starts, I ask the person organizing the event for a volunteer to help with money at the table where I will be signing. This is essential. People will only wait so long to get a book signed. It the process drags out while an author is making change, etc., they will leave. 

I'm hard of hearing and a group of voices creating background noise makes the situation worse. Also, events are invariably held in a bad acoustical environment. Usually the venue has high ceilings and and smooth floors. I've started carrying little sticky notes with me and ask people to write out the name they want used for the autograph. It's amazing how many ways there are to spell common names. 

In this discouraging environment it's easy to forget that good things happen. Books are written. Books are read. And they last forever. 

Will Rogers Award

 Last Saturday I received the Will Rogers Memorial Silver Medallion for The Healer's Daughter. I was simultaneously thrilled and simply beside myself that I was unable to attend the awards ceremony. I wanted to be in Fort Worth, Texas in person. Not just virtually. 

I will receive the medallion in the mail and am scanning through Amazon for a display box to hold this award and my Kansas Notable Book Award for the same title. My finalist recognition for the High Plains Book Award is signified by a lovely mounted plaque. It will be displayed separately. 

My friend Mary Anna Evans won the gold medallion for Catacombs, a book in her wonderful Faye Longchamp archeological series. 

I'm deeply grateful for my award. This book is based on a tremendous amount of historical research about the unique community of Nicodemus, Kansas and the courageous African Americans who settled there after the Civil War. When I lived in Kansas, the town was just fifty miles away. One of the descendants of these settlers, Angela Bates, became a very close friend. She often referred to me as her "white sister with a black soul."

The book was a labor of love. I also wrote an academic book on the phenomenal contribution of Nicodemus to our country's history. Both books required long hours of poring through microfilm and old newspapers to shape the stories I wanted to tell.

Receiving any award is an incredible blessing. We writers are rather insecure folk. We work alone and dither over everything from word choice to plot construction. We wrestle with scolding characters who want to play a bigger part. We are never sure of our way or that we have arrived after we get there. Awards are like a shot of jet fuel. That and the wonder of a letter from a fan saying they liked my book.

Hat's off to all the awards chairmen and committees that soldiered on through Covid and did their best to make events as meaningful as possible during this difficult time. 

Surprise!

Last week when I was in Barnes and Noble at Goodland there was a table set up with a whole display of my new non-fiction academic book, surrounded by all of my mysteries. Not only was I delighted, I was so surprised.

This boondoggle occurred with no effort on my part. It was a gift. Out of the blue. Generating publicity is such an elusive part of publishing that it's easy to forget that sometimes good things simply happen.

The full title of the Nicodemus book is Nicodemus: Post-Reconstruction Politics and Racial Justice in Western Kansas. It's about 19th century African American Politicians and their contribution to the settlement of the West. Specifically, it's about the philosophies of three men in Nicodemus, who affected local, state, and national politics.

Not much connection to my mysteries. I can come up with one. Sort of. The Lottie Albright mysteries are set in Western Kansas and all have some sort of history worked in somewhere. But still. Who would have thought that B & N would have a display linking the two genres.

Through the years I have become very open to the delights of appearances and events. Even the ones that are disastrous have comical aspects. I started to go into some of the specifics then erased the copy. Because I'm well aware of the effort involved for booksellers and organizations to put signings together and would hate for followers of this blog to think I'm making fun of their time and efforts.

I'm deeply grateful for all the breaks I've had and very conscious that writers far more talented than I have not been so lucky. I'm very much aware of how far I have to go in learning the craft and polishing what little skill I have.

There's never a time when I attend a conference that I don't go home sobered by the knowledge that the writers at the top of the bestseller lists are the most disciplined hard-working people I know. Without exception.

The Title Dilemma

Oh what to call the precious gem. Actually, I'm convinced books are precious only in the eyes of the author. Once a book reaches a certain place in the production process and is subjected to the ideas of the marketing team nothing is more unnerving than the process of choosing the best title to maximize sales.

I'm used to houses changing my titles by now. The title of the first short story I ever published was changed from "Night Song" to "Alone at Night." After all, it was for a trucking magazine, Overdrive. And from then on it was strictly downhill. Or was it? Through the years, I've found the reasons for title changes fascinating. Come Spring was originally A Different Spirit. The reasoning there was that A Different Spirit sounded occult.

Bound by Blood was changed to Deadly Descent because my editor pointed out that clerks don't have time to read all the books and it would end up in the vampire section. I had envisioned the "Bound By" series. Bound by Blood, Bound by Death, etc. It's now the Lottie Albright series and each books has a distinctive name, although all have two alliterative words. I'm very glad. I have trouble keeping track of which books I've read in some series. John Sanford's Prey series comes to mind.

The academic book I'm publishing with University of Oklahoma press has been especially troubling. I worried about the first word, Nicodemus. It's about the ideas of three men who played a critical role in founding the town and I was afraid the descendants of people in Nicodemus would be distressed that their family wasn't mentioned. There are a number of books that could be written about the original colony and I hope those familiar with the genealogy will consider doing it.

Mine is about A.T. Hall, Jr., John W. Niles, and E.P. McCabe and its all about politics. I think the final title will be Nicodemus: Reconstruction Politics and Racial Justice in Western Kansas. The sub-title will narrow the focus an people's expectations.

I'm very, very happy with this one although Post-Reconstruction Politics would be more accurate. I started by wanting Creating a Civilization because African Americans had to do just that after they migrated to the High Plains.

This has been a hard book to write. Tracking down documentation is a lot of work. It's sort of like the sleuthing process in a mystery.

Let Me Go

Let me go ye gods of manuscripts. Take this book off my mind. Shoo! Get out of my writing room.

I sent off my non-fiction book this week. It's for University of Oklahoma Press. Right now the working title is Nicodemus: Race and Culture on the Kansas Frontier. The moment I put it in the mail I wanted it back. I instantly thought of things I wish I had said, or shouldn't have said. When I worried that the paper was too cheap or not the right weight or the right degree of brightness, I knew I had passed over the line into a new kind of craziness.

Did I remember everyone I wanted to thank in the acknowledgements? Were all the names spelled correctly. Was I wrong on just about everything? Was there some crucial resource that I left out? Was the epilogue too short? It took a long time to finish this project. Academic books require extensive documentation. I've read so many microfilmed newspaper that I'm lucky I still can see.

Non-fiction books have their own protocol. For one thing, I had so send this manuscript in both print and digital formats, with each chapter in a separate digital file. Poisoned Pen Press wants everything in a single digital file. In fact that's true of most fiction publishers nowadays. Each method has it's own merits.

Single large files are a dream to edit. For that matter I can change a name instantly throughout the whole book. We had to do that in Hidden Heritage when I read two days before I sent in the final manuscript that a family in New Mexico was suing the government over the same issue that was the linchpin of my mystery.

When I got home from FedEx, I realized I had left out the checklist. See? I told myself I would leave out something that was critical. I'll scan it and email it to my editor.

I have a couple of things left to do. This kind of book has a lot of pictures and acquiring permission to print them is quite tedious. The first step is to determine who owns the copyright. The next step is  writing to the owner and getting signed permission to publish. The stipulations are very restrictive. I only have one more picture to collect. I don't want to take a chance on it getting lost in the mail and will go to LaJunta, CO to scan it. It's a priceless picture of Lulu Craig, whom I quote throughout the book.

I have to do my own indexing. The process is quite precise. However, one of the things I appreciate about OU Press is detailed instructions. There are professional indexers, but the price would come out of my own pocket and it would be really hard for someone else to pick out the sub-headings I have in mind.

This is a learning process. Right now, I'm maxed out on integrating new information. And I want the book off my mind while I finish my fourth mystery.

You can bet I'll let everyone know when the academic book is published.

The Built-in Topic

Everyone's mystery is about some particular setting or topic that can be exploited for talks. That little something in the background is much more likely to hold a readers' attention than trying to persuade people to buy your mystery book. Why is your book different from everyone else's book?

I've always known this, but with the advent of social media, I'm just now beginning to realize how much can be done. Recently I received a request to speak at Nicodemus, Kansas on the topic of my new history book. The book is about 19th century Kansas African American politicians. There were hints that I might receive a stipend. We'll see. Considering the state's draconian budget cuts, I'm not counting on it.

To me, it was terrific to have to an unsolicited invitation to speak to people on a topic that they are interested in. I accepted happily with the usual warning, however, that I don't do weather. Eastern Colorado and Western Kansas are famous for savage last minute storms and I often have to cancel plans.

Because the book won't be out until 2016, I'll take my mysteries along and do a little mini-pitch for the Lottie Albright series. I'll talk about the differences between fiction and non-fiction writing.

Between now and time University of Oklahoma Press's catalog comes out, I need to take the time to sit down and think.

For some reason planning marketing comes hard for me. It's not that I can't think. It's just that I don't like to. Oddly enough I love to solve problems. That helps me a lot with my wretched computer wrecks. An ability to solve problems would seem to carry over to futuristic planning, but it doesn't.

To stay afloat in this noisy overcrowded word of mystery writing, we simply have to learn to plan campaigns. Oddly enough, there has been very little written on this subject.

Care to share how you do it. Do you simply respond to whatever falls in your lap? Or plan ahead.?